Floydada, Lockney meet for Floyd Co. bragging rights

Published 5:01 am, Thursday, September 2, 2010

The annual Floyd County championship comes to Lockney on the second week of the young season as the Longhorns host the Floydada Whirlwinds.

According to both head coaches, their teams and communities are excited about Friday night's match-up.

"I think they've been playing this thing for so long, parents and grandparents have got stories about it," Lockney head coach Malcom Moerbe said. "Everybody has an anecdote about a particular Lockney-Floydada game. It's one of those games that is fun for everybody."

Heading into his second Floyd County Championship, Floydada head coach Todd Bandy said his team is trying to "treat this like any other game.

"I'm not for sure it is the kids (who are excited) as much the community," Bandy said. "We're trying to go win a game . . . There is the Floyd County championship mystique behind it, but we just want to improve."

The key area Bandy said the Whirlwinds need to improve on after their 24-0 season-opening loss to the No. 12-ranked Sunray Bobcats last Friday is in the red zone.

"I don't know what the deal is, but we seem to get inside the 20 or 30 and make mistakes," Bandy said. "We have to cut the mistakes in the red zone out. We've got to get in the mind set when we get in the red zone we're going to put points on the board."

Not helping Floydada put points on the board last week were turnovers.

"We've got to fix the turnover situation," Bandy said. "We had five turnovers against the No. 12 team in the state."

And while turnovers frustrated the Whirlwinds, they were what lifted Lockney to its win over Slaton and what could be the deciding factor this week.

"We got three turnovers last week, including the one that helped us win the game," Moerbe said, referring to the late-game interception that set up the Longhorns' go-ahead score. "Our goal each week is to get three turnovers."

Moerbe doesn't see Floydada's turnovers and subsequent loss as a reason to be overly confident, however.

"The fact that Floydada got beat doesn't cause us to respect them any less," Moerbe said. "They are a good team. It was the big plays that beat them."

Bandy agreed with Moerbe's assessment.

"We've got to stop the big plays," he said. "(Sunray) had three big passes and that's what hurt us. It was the difference in the game last week."

For the Longhorns to make big plays - offensively or defensively - Moerbe said his team needs to focus on the basics.

"We've got a lot of things to get better at," he said. "We're going to have to block better and tackle better - the two basics of football."

Moerbe added that the war in the trenches will be key for the Longhorns to have offensive success.